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Wild Plum Marmalade

A preserved fruit spread made from plums and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Wild Plum Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and weigh the plums.

Cook the marmalade

  1. In a large pot, combine the plums and sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture, skimming off any stones that rise to the surface.

  3. Continue boiling until the juice thickens.

Jar and seal

  1. Pour the marmalade into jars and seal.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the fruit flavor, natural acidity and pectin that help the marmalade set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it concentrates, helps the juice thicken into a spreadable set.

The step that matters

Continue boiling until the juice thickens. Pectin and sugar set only when enough water has evaporated. Stopping too early leaves a runny marmalade, while boiling too long makes it stiff and overly sweet as it cools.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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